Saturday, June 28, 2014

Ten Reasons My Kids Play Lots of Games

I have been fascinated with the brain and how it works for years now. I do a whole lot of reading about the brain. I have a ton of books about the brain and learning. I follow several online journals and newsletters and make note of any articles that have something to do with the brain and how it works. HERE's a link to my Pinterest collection of Brain ResearchHere are some of the things I've learned about the brain:1.Practice Makes Permanent!We know that “Practice Makes Perfect” is a fallacy since we know if a child practices something incorrectly, he learns it incorrectly. Whatever they practice needs to be accurate so the child learns it correctly. (I’m sure you know how hard it is to break a bad habit!)

2.Practice with Feedback is even better!As the children work in pairs or small groups, the teacher or the partner should immediately say the correct answer if it’s not given. That feedback is essential!

3.The Brain is a Parallel Processor!Brains are much more likely to remember something if the learner uses more than one process. If the children are looking at the fact, saying the fact out loud, and making gestures or moving manipulatives on the tens frame, they are more likely to remember the information than if they just looked at it.

4.Brains Need Social Interaction! When children work together, they are keeping the brain happy. Social interaction is HUGE when it comes to learning!

5.Emotions play a big role in memory!A little healthy competition gets the blood moving, bringing oxygen to the brain and helping the memory do its thing.

6.Brains remember patterns!If you organize information by patterns, it helps! An example might be learning math facts by fact family or sight words by word family.

8.The Working Memory can hold 2 to 4 chunks of information at a time!This is why I suggest starting many games with just some of the cards, not all the cards at once!

9.A little bit each day is more productive than a lot, once a week!I like to spend 5 minutes a day practicing math facts, 5 minutes a day practicing sight words, etc. This is so much more valuable than a half hour once a week!

10.Music helps the brain organize data!It is recommended that appropriate background music is played during practice times.

Want to read more about the brain and learning? Here are links to some of my most popular posts!